BRZ NAV not finding satellites

[xwd]

I had similar issues today in my BRZ which I just got yesterday. I did about a 10 mile/20 minute drive down a freeway this morning and it didn't find any satellites until I slowed down and got on another freeway. I also had it lose the satellites again on a short drive and it didn't find them again until I pulled into my subdivision at very low speed.

Atlanta has a ton of tree lined streets and even freeways with tall trees so I'm hoping it isn't the height of the car and the position of the receiver which is an issue. I did check the signal strength (you can touch the satellite icon) and it had reception from 5 satellites, but nothing strong enough. When I got into the subdivision I did see the strength go up and the nav synced up pretty quickly...

I do consider this to be unacceptable, and plan on taking the car to the dealer if there isn't some simple fix to be found. I have a nav system in my 2012 Wrangler and it never has an issue picking up satellites anywhere...

[DSPographer]

More discussion of the Nav issue with some example videos here:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...526#post267526
The OP to that thread had the dealer replace everything without fixing the problem.

[Deslock]

A quick update:

Mine has been working fine for the most part. I haven't had a repeat of it losing the signal for a long period of time, though there are two spots on my commute where it almost always says it loses the signal, but reacquires immediately. In both cases, it only loses the signal in one direction:

• 1/2 mile from home on the way to work (lots of tree cover).
• 1/4 mile from work on the way home (driving by a tall building).

This makes me think it just hasn't acquired enough satellites (since starting the car) to maintain a reliable fix.

[Deslock]

Originally Posted by Deslock

A quick update:

Mine has been working fine for the most part. I haven't had a repeat of it losing the signal for a long period of time, though there are two spots on my commute where it almost always says it loses the signal, but reacquires immediately. In both cases, it only loses the signal in one direction:

• 1/2 mile from home on the way to work (lots of tree cover).
• 1/4 mile from work on the way home (driving by a tall building).

This makes me think it just hasn't acquired enough satellites (since starting the car) to maintain a reliable fix.

Well, I spoke too soon as this afternoon it lost the signal at a different spot, and didn't reacquire for the 10 minute drive. Once again, it was within 1/4 mile of leaving my house, supporting the notion that it sometimes needs to acquire a strong signal when starting (i.e. before moving) the car to maintain a fix.

[86design]

Originally Posted by Symbiont

My nav works fine, but the traffic notifications don't (similar to the other thread).

I'd love to see what Subaru is able to do about it.

my traffic notifcations doesnt work AT ALL!!! if i'm stuck in traffic I want to see where the traffic is! but nope it keeps saying NO TRAFFIC NOTICATIONS AROUND YOUR AREA!

Or

some times if I want to go on the MENU shows the MAP/ Find address/ and sometimes else/ MORE... the MORE button is un click able

[xwd]

Originally Posted by Deslock

Well, I spoke too soon as this afternoon it lost the signal at a different spot, and didn't reacquire for the 10 minute drive. Once again, it was within 1/4 mile of leaving my house, supporting the notion that it sometimes needs to acquire a strong signal when starting (i.e. before moving) the car to maintain a fix.

I keep posting in the two different threads but I think waiting for the signal when starting is probably the key to this. I did a few more tests and found whenever I wait until the system starts up and acquires a signal it works fine. If I leave before things are activated it's really hit or miss whether it works or not. Just a few minutes ago it ended up becoming active after sitting at a stoplight.

The traffic stuff doesn't seem to work for me either.

[n7011n]

I just picked up my GBS Limited 2 days ago and drove over 800 miles from NY to Illinois without any GPS issues. Now that it is home though, the nav unit refuses to reliably lock on to satellites. I tried sitting in my driveway with the engine running and the sat lock screen visible and I'm only getting 2 sats (low on the western horizon) and they won't lock (green dots on sky view display). My iPhone locks in immediately. I know from my flying days that there are usually at least 6 sats that should be somewhere overhead at all times. I pulled the following from the FAA site:

"With the baseline satellite constellation, users with a clear view of the sky have a minimum of four satellites in view. It’s more likely that a user would see six to eight satellites."

I have to wonder if the head unit doesn't have a complete or accurate satellite position database as there should be more visible satellites.

I have to agree with other posts that once moving, the unit has a terrible time trying to lock into satellites. Once it does lock in, it seems fine.

Hopefully, Subaru will work on a fix for this as it is annoying to have the nav screen bouncing around. I prefer to turn the display off or leave it on audio.

[louis]

Does anyone know if the roof antenna is the sat antenna or just terrestrial? I went from a pioneer nav in my tC and that thing would lock almost instantly... it would also keep navigation going (using what I believe is called dead reckoning) under the tunnels of Boston.

The subaru nav sucks. I sat in my driveway for 3 minutes this morning. It gets a signal, then as soon as a I make a 90 degree turn onto the highway, it's lost for the duration of my 25 minute drive. WTF.

I absolutely love this car. But the nav is awful. When it gets a signal, it works well, but I just don't know why it would take more than 30 seconds.

Anxious to see Crutchfield's writeup of the internal wiring and such.. may just drop one of the pioneer units in there but I don't want to have to re-install phone mic/usb/aux ports and sat. antenna.

-- oh, forgot to add... the nav traffic also does not work. It will say no issues, yet there will be stopped traffic/construction.. you name it. I've used a late model garmin with FM traffic and it actually does work.

[DSPographer]

Originally Posted by louis

Does anyone know if the roof antenna is the sat antenna or just terrestrial? I went from a pioneer nav in my tC and that thing would lock almost instantly... it would also keep navigation going (using what I believe is called dead reckoning) under the tunnels of Boston.

The subaru nav sucks. I sat in my driveway for 3 minutes this morning. It gets a signal, then as soon as a I make a 90 degree turn onto the highway, it's lost for the duration of my 25 minute drive. WTF.

I absolutely love this car. But the nav is awful. When it gets a signal, it works well, but I just don't know why it would take more than 30 seconds.

Anxious to see Crutchfield's writeup of the internal wiring and such.. may just drop one of the pioneer units in there but I don't want to have to re-install phone mic/usb/aux ports and sat. antenna.

-- oh, forgot to add... the nav traffic also does not work. It will say no issues, yet there will be stopped traffic/construction.. you name it. I've used a late model garmin with FM traffic and it actually does work.

If you check the other thread I linked above I list where I have discovered a few things. First I think the roof antenna is just for the radio: XM and FM. I think the GPS antenna is in the same place as in the Impreza- behind the head unit just under the dash. The combination of this location in the BRZ and the performance of the antenna+receiver of the GPS seems fairly poor compared with all other GPS units I have used. More info on what is going on in the nav unit can be seen in the service menu. You can get into the service menu by pressing at the same time: first the map button, then the speech command button, then the audio button and holding them a few seconds. (You can go back to normal operation by pressing and holding the volume nob like you do to shut off the audio.) From there I see that the speedo input to the nav unit reads 64 MPH when the car is really going 41 MPH. I think this error is at least a problem for the dead-reckoning the unit does when it doesn't have a satellite fix. It might also interfere with getting a GPS lock when moving if the software tries to make the fit agree with the speedo value. The poor dead reckoning could also slow down the initial lock after driving by causing the unit to start its initial guess for your location in the wrong place.

[DSPographer]

I showed the Nav speedo input problem to a service tech from my dealer today, and they just called back to make an appointment for me to leave the car for a day or two for diagnosis. I don't really expect them to fix the Nav unit's problems, but I hope that they can at least help SOA get to the cause of the its issues. I will post an update on what they find out.

[Symbiont]

Originally Posted by DSPographer

If you check the other thread I linked above I list where I have discovered a few things. First I think the roof antenna is just for the radio: XM and FM. I think the GPS antenna is in the same place as in the Impreza- behind the head unit just under the dash. The combination of this location in the BRZ and the performance of the antenna+receiver of the GPS seems fairly poor compared with all other GPS units I have used. More info on what is going on in the nav unit can be seen in the service menu. You can get into the service menu by pressing at the same time: first the map button, then the speech command button, then the audio button and holding them a few seconds. (You go back to normal operation after shutting off the car.) From there I see that the speedo input to the nav unit reads 64 MPH when the car is really going 41 MPH. I think this error is at least a problem for the dead-reckoning the unit does when it doesn't have a satellite fix. It might also interfere with getting a GPS lock when moving if the software tries to make the fit agree with the speedo value. The poor dead reckoning could also slow down the initial lock after driving by causing the unit to start its initial guess for your location in the wrong place.

You're probably right about the antenna.

[WMS]

Originally Posted by DSPographer

I showed the Nav speedo input problem to a service tech from my dealer today, and they just called back to make an appointment for me to leave the car for a day or two for diagnosis. I don't really expect them to fix the Nav unit's problems, but I hope that they can at least help SOA get to the cause of the its issues. I will post an update on what they find out.

Thank you for the update. I am expecting a telephone call today from a tech person at SOA who will help assess my similar NAV and voice recognition problems. I will be able to be in the BRZ while going over problems with him for his initial assessment. Also, thank you for leaving your car for evaluation...I live fairly far from the dealer so I asked for an initial telephone evaluation for this electronic problem.

[OMNOM]

Hope this thread follows through, my NAV has been pretty terrible in its limited use and the XM cuts out every now and then too. Hope SOA comes up with a fix.

[MmmHamSandwich]

Too bad it can't be ordered without the Navi. A shitty head unit makes it that much harder to justify the price of the BRZ over the FR-S.